Sunday, June 2, 2013

Everyone once in a while, usually when in the dentist’s
chair, I think of the lyrics to this song by Don Gardner:

All I want for Christmas
is my two front teeth,
my two front teeth,
see my two front teeth!

Gee, if I could only
have my two front teeth,
then I could wish you
"Merry Christmas."

The new dental hygienist
noticed my two upper caps.

“Car accident?”

No, nothing that commonplace. My mishap had drama, flair,
and a piece of showbiz involving a major golf tournament at the prestigious
Southern Hills Country Club. And no, it wasn’t a wayward golf ball. Here’s
the story:

This happened back in the day, way back in the day, before
satellite television and cell phones. (Yes, I am that old.) My Southwestern
Bell crew had the assignment to assist in the broadcast of a PGA Championship
golf tournament. This was an undertaking of staggering proportions back then.
The work began almost a year before the actual event when trenching machines began
laying video cable all over the course. Yep, that’s the way we got short
distance TV from point A to point B. Our job was to not only feed the video
from the cameras to the various network trucks, but to send the on-air signal
to the AT&T Television Operating Center in downtown Tulsa where it was then distributed to millions of viewers. To do that, we
had to erect a 60 foot temporary tower very near the final hole and use
point-to-point transmission to relay the signal.

At one time during play, via one of the cameras, I could see
that Jack Nicklous was approaching the tee nearest my
station. I admit to abandoning my post at the microwave transmitter long
enough to watch that golfing legend hit the ball. To this day, I can still close my eyes and
see him puff up like a big ol' frog and hammer that thing.

Few people ever see what happens after a golf tournament,
after the trophy is awarded, and all the players go home. Somebody has to tear
all that equipment out and clean up the mess. One of those people was me.
Cables were coiled and stored, racks full of electronics were dismantled, and
oh yeah, that 60 foot tower had to come down. Ron, my old drinkin’ buddy, and I were given the job to go
to the top and start in. Two other fellas, one a new guy by the name of O’Dell
Robertson, were to stay on the ground and work the ropes. The tower was made of
heavy aluminum, box-like, about four foot square if I remember
correctly. It was assembled and disassembled in sections, kind of like Tinker
Toys. A device called a davit, like what you might see to lower a lifeboat from
a ship, was used to lower each section as the locking pins were removed. A long
rope, or tag line, reached to the ground and was used to steady the descending
sections to keep them from getting hung up on the remaining part of the tower.
There were guy lines of course, to keep the whole thing from falling over in a
gust of wind. These lines were disconnected, section by section, as the tower
came down. Things went smooth enough although being that high in the
air on such a shaky apparatus wasn’t all that much fun, but we were about
done. The men on the ground removed the last of the guy wires. Ron and I hooked
up another section to the davit and raised it up and over the side. O’Dell was
on the tag line. To this point, O’Dell had been doing a great job of keeping
the sections clear of obstructions by putting a fair amount of diagonal pull on
the rope. What this collection of brilliant technical minds failed to consider
was that without any form of guy line, the force being applied by O’Dell was more
than enough to tip the tower over. I heard someone call out, “IT’S FALLING!”

Estimated height of the tower at this crucial moment was in
the neighborhood of fifteen to twenty feet, much more survivable than the
previous sixty, but still a long way to the ground. I was inside the framework of the tower and
did not have a lot of options. I grabbed two round beams, one on either side,
and managed to position my body between them. I clearly recall my logic. “If I
can just stay between the beams, the whole thing will crash around me. I’ll be
fine.”

It worked, up to a point. The problem was, I forgot to
release my death grip on the beams as my feet made impact. My legs bent under
the weight, forcing my now stationary and upright knees into my face that was still traveling at the approximate speed of Mach One. Goodybe teeth.Ron managed to ride it down with one arm slung over a beam.
He still had his teeth but his shoulder suffered some damage.

We were checked over at the emergency room where x-rays were
taken. No broken bones thank goodness, but I still had a stop to make at the
dentist office.

I can still remember his words. “Young man, you’ve had a rough
day and I know you’re in pain, but I’m about to help you with that.” And bless
his heart and his happy gas, he did.